Emergency Management

Volunteer Organizations

The Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office provides a number of services to the citizens of and visitors to Beltrami County from preplanned events such as the county fair to emergency operations like search and rescue or disaster response. Many of these services are augmented by the dedicated service and generosity of volunteers who provide time and/or resources to assist the Sheriff’s Office. Volunteers play an integral role in the Sheriff’s Office, so it is important to provide adequate training and screening for qualified personnel.

We appreciate your interest in becoming a volunteer with the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office endeavors to maintain the highest level of integrity throughout the entire organization. Employees and volunteers are subject to a background check as part of the application process. The Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office Volunteer Application Packet incorporates several required documents into the application for convenience and ease. Please complete all responses in the application and PRINT legibly wherever signature is not required. Depending on your affiliation as a volunteer, fingerprint background checks may be required and will be coordinated with the Emergency Management Director.

North Country First Responders

The purpose and mission of North Country First Responders is to provide confident, competent and compassionate pre-hospital emergency care to anyone in and around our community, serving in a professional and caring way; assisting local ambulance personnel as they direct us, and adhering to our established protocols, based on our level of training.

The North Country First Responders are a group of volunteers who are trained as Emergency Medical Responders (EMR) and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) to care for those involved in crashes and medical emergencies. Our volunteers respond 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, often in the middle of the night. These are your friends and neighbors who save lives on a daily basis. North Country First Responders cover an area encompassing 27 townships in Beltrami County and 4 Hubbard County townships.

Beltrami County Mounted Posse

The Beltrami County Mounted Posse was founded in 1994 as a non-profit organization by a dedicated group of people with a big idea. Members had the vision and continue to assist the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office with a number of tasks including but not limited to: search and rescue operations, security details and incident management. The Posse respond to the call for help at all hours of the day and are equipped with their equine partners or even four wheeled all-terrain vehicles as needed.

Members of the Posse come from a diverse background made up of community members across the county. While you must be 18 to become a member of the Posse, the average age of Posse members is 30-55. All members are committed to serving the community’s needs in a variety of ways. Having an equine partner or four wheeler are not prerequisites to joining the Posse. If assisting in the field isn’t exactly what you are looking for, there may be other opportunities within the Posse. Simply fill out an application and note what areas you can contribute to the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office or Emergency Management and we will see if we can find something to fit your talents.

Paul Bunyan Amateur Radio Club

The Paul Bunyan Amateur Radio Club has been providing severe weather reporting (Skywarn), emergency communications support, and community service to Beltrami County for over 30 years. Whenever severe weather threatens, club members are activated by the National Weather Service or the Beltrami County Emergency Operations Center. Members immediately go to preplanned locations throughout the county where they communicate via radio directly with the National Weather Service radar operators in Grand Forks to provide advance warning of weather conditions that may threaten the citizens of the county. The club also maintains and operates the Beltrami County Emergency Communications Trailer which is deployed as a mobile command and communications center for law enforcement, fire, ambulance, and other emergency and public service responders.